September 5, 2017

Dear Families,
Welcome to 1st grade! My name is Amy Seckel and I will be your child’s 1 st grade teacher this year at DAAS.
This will be my tenth year as a classroom teacher, and sixth year at DAAS. I am very excited to teach your 1 st
graders this year! Below you will find information about your child’s classroom.

School Day:
In 1st grade we do many hands-on activities every day to help with the learning process. If your child is not at
school and on time each day they are missing out on these important experiences. If your child will be absent
please send in an excuse note.
Start Time, Monday-Friday: 8:00 a.m., any student arriving after 8:20 will be marked tardy.
Dismissal, Monday-Thursday: 3:30 p.m., if picking up your student, pick up is in the gym at the West building.
Dismissal, Friday: Pick up time is 1:30 p.m.
Lunch: Lunch will be from 12:00-12:30.

Behavior Expectations:
It is very important for all students to know and understand the behavior and academic expectations in the
classroom and school. This year we will be utilizing the Class Dojo app to encourage positive behaviors.
Students can earn celebrations and rewards based on their positive dojo percentages. The best part is that
you can be connected and check in on your child at any time. When students are showing behaviors that
exhibit DAAS PRIDE (Prepared, Responsible, Integrity, Determined, Engaged) they will earn positive green
points. If a student is not following classroom/school rules after several warnings, they will earn negative red
points. Weekly reports are sent to parents signed up with the app. A letter will be sent home soon explaining
how to get connected to Class Dojo. It will also be an excellent communication tool for you to message me
and see pictures of the latest classroom happenings!

Supplies:
All classroom supplies are for community use. They will be shared amongst all the students and used for
learning throughout the school year. If you are able to contribute to our classroom we could use: crayons,
pencils, erasers, dry erase markers, glue, Kleenex, and hand sanitizer.

I am looking forward to a great year working with you and your child! Please feel free to contact me at any
time with questions or concerns.

Thank you,
Mrs. Seckel
Email: aseckel@daask12.com
Phone: (313) 259-1744 ext. 3109
Website: www.daasfirst.weebly.com
 First Grade Skills and Standards

For each subject area listed below you will see many of the standards our students will be learning
throughout the school year.

Social Studies
-Use a calendar to distinguish among days, weeks, and months
-Give examples of absolute locations
-Identify reasons for rules in school
-Describe some responsibilities people have at home and at school
-Describe ways in which families consume goods and services

Science
-Understand the properties of light and sound
-Describe the life cycle of animals
-Compare/contrast weather and weather patterns of the four seasons
-Identify the importance of the Sun

Math
-Addition Strategies
-Subtraction Strategies
-Exploring Shapes
-Creating and interpreting graphs
-Place Value (understanding tens and ones)
-Telling Time to the hour and half hour
-Measurement

Writing/Language Arts
-Write complete sentences using capitalization and punctuation marks
-Understand and use nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns
-Write three or more sentences to complete a personal narrative, an opinion piece, and a nonfiction
piece

Reading
-Decode words using multiple strategies
-Know and apply phonics patterns to blend unknown words
-Identify the main idea and details of a story
-Retell stories
-Describe elements of a story (characters, setting, events, problem, and solution)